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How do you improve a stellar veteran squad that have won back-to-back championships, featuring a league-cup double with 30 victories from thirty-two games?

Recruit a collection of former pro players who have performed at the top level of club football and international football as you pursue further trophies.

One Manchester team has an non-professional veterans team with nine former top-flight players in their active lineup.

222 Premier League Scores, Three Hundred Twenty-Five Global Caps

The team Veterans Over 35s are based in southern the city and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Top Division.

The roster this season includes 9 former top-flight players, with a total 1,801 elite matches.

The high-profile team also boasts 222 Premier League scores and 325 international caps.

They include one forward, who scored 37 scores in 117 games for his former club after moving to them for £9m from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in 2012.

He had his first appearance for the team in their most recent home-field game against reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored all six scores in a 6-2 victory - featuring a half-hour first-half triple.

The roster for this campaign also features former professionals such as England and Anfield forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Everton striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan Athletic full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City duo Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.

Together, the former top-flight footballers have claimed fifteen major honors and moved for combined transfer sums of approximately £123m.

Well-Known Figures and International Stars

Ireland started turning out for the team in preseason this season through good mate and present team teammate Blake Norton, and the ex- Republic of Ireland midfielder then invited other former professionals, who all play in a midweek small-sided match, to participate.

Ex- Senegal forward Niasse, who scored 12 scores in sixty-five Premier League games for Everton and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also had his debut against Collegiate OB - who are located in Liverpool and use an Blue warm-up gear as their uniform.

"A friend Stephen said 'come and play, it's enjoyable'," commented Niasse.

"After that he informed me we were facing a team from the city and the surprise I had when I noticed them sporting Blue kits - I thought this is strange for me!

"If you still love football and you feel you can still do it, anywhere you can kick a ball, what are you going to do?

"The spectators who turn up and see are happy and to give a moment if they see us competing there and to ask us questions - it's more like the pleasure of us getting a place we can play, with organisation of course."

Such is the bench strength at the club, Niasse made his first game at defender.

"That's a little unusual but then, I love sprinting and just move forward - I'm not defending that much," he said.

"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.

"That running is what I'm looking for. It's enjoyable."

'Surreal Feeling

In addition to Cisse's 6 goals on his first game, Ireland has scored 8 in 3 appearances for the side, while Boyd scored five on his first match and Joleon Lescott, a defender by trade, scored a hat-trick in one match as a striker.

The team are top of the Premier Tier with 3 victories from three and a GD of plus nineteen.

Paul Barrow, thirty-eight, who features on the flank for the opposition, came up against former Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa on the weekend - and had to explain his young boy who Heskey was.

He has played at two global tournaments for his country, in as well as featuring in more than 200 Premier League games.

"The news was spreading like wildfire they had all these former top-flight stars," said Barrow.

"I felt I was a little starstruck facing Figueroa to be honest.

"Even Heskey got on and he's got 60-odd England appearances.

"Our side competed well for a good twenty minutes but then we had a player sent off and it was hard.

"We really have not stopped chatting about it - I was calling my mum and sibling on the journey home.

"The opponents were all dead sound, shaking our hands after the game - it was like facing a bunch of normal fellas.

"Now we can't wait for the second fixture."

'We'll Still Take the League'

Andy Kirby manages the Collegiate veterans team, who secured the Premier Tier championship the previous campaign, together with his co-manager.

"We went 1-0 ahead and had a